California

  • August 24, 2026

    Fiat Chrysler Brings Defective Headrest Suit To Justices

    Fiat Chrysler is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve a circuit split over whether an arbitrator or a court should decide the proper venue for a dispute involving a nonsignatory to an arbitration agreement, in a proposed class action over allegedly defective Jeep and Dodge headrests.

  • August 24, 2026

    DivX Fights Uphill For New Patent Trial After Loss To Netflix

    A California federal judge indicated Monday he is not likely to grant video compression technology company DivX's request for a new trial over anti-copying and image-quality patents after a jury cleared Netflix of infringement in March, disagreeing that he gave faulty jury instructions by using the word "covers" instead of "includes."

  • August 24, 2026

    EPA, States Defend Cleanup Deal In Talc Co. Whittaker Ch. 11

    The government, joined by California and Montana, is defending a proposed settlement in former talc supplier Whittaker Clark's New Jersey Chapter 11 case, saying a group of personal injury creditors' objection mischaracterized the $16.5 million deal.

  • August 24, 2026

    Liberty Mutual Says Insurers Owe For Leaky Pipe Suits

    Liberty Mutual told a California federal court that two other insurers haven't paid their fair share of a pipe manufacturer's defense costs in lawsuits alleging the company's defective products led to leaks in construction projects, saying Liberty has contributed beyond its $1 million limit.

  • August 24, 2026

    Calif. Takes Trump Admin Pipeline Fight To 9th Circ.

    California has asked the Ninth Circuit to review a district court's rejection of its bid to block the Trump administration's reopening of a controversial coastal oil pipeline, which a judge said was a valid use of federal emergency authority under the Defense Production Act.

  • August 24, 2026

    Drone Co. Investor Says Early Lock-Up Waiver Tanked Stock

    Drone-maker Aevex Corp. has been accused in a shareholder's proposed class action of abruptly ending share restrictions after its April initial public offering, allowing a major stakeholder to profit while the company lost $900 million in market share due to a resulting decline in share price.

  • August 24, 2026

    'History And Tradition' Allow For Religious Emails, USDA Says

    The U.S. Department of Agriculture urged a California federal court to toss a suit by federal workers and their labor union accusing the agency's secretary of sending "proselytizing" religious emails to employees, arguing the messages align with the "history and tradition" of public officials making references to religion.

  • August 24, 2026

    'Time Bubble' Doesn't Warrant 'RAW' TM Retrial, Judge Says

    An Arizona federal judge has denied a request for a new trial to a company suing a rival over its "RAW" rolling papers trademark, saying the company had not been prejudiced by the judge's decision to exclude evidence from May 2021 on and ordering the company to pay its rival over $3 million in attorney fees and costs.

  • August 24, 2026

    Facebook Investors Move For Class Cert. After High Court Test

    Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP and Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann LLP are pushing to lead a class of Facebook Inc. investors who claim to have lost billions of dollars in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, saying they are well-positioned to spearhead the case after defeating a U.S. Supreme Court challenge.

  • August 24, 2026

    9th Circ. Sends Juneau Trust Fight Back After DOI Reversal

    A Ninth Circuit panel on Monday remanded a dispute over a 787-square-foot parcel in downtown Juneau after the U.S. Department of the Interior changed its position on the land-into-trust decision for an Alaskan tribal government.

  • August 24, 2026

    Social Media Giants Denied Pause Of Calif. Kids Algorithm Law

    A California federal judge on Friday again refused to block the Golden State law that bars social media companies from using algorithmic feeds to deliver content to children without parents' consent, telling Meta, Google and TikTok that predictive algorithms that show "interesting" content aren't protected free speech.

  • August 24, 2026

    High Court Lifts Block On Mail-In Ballot Changes

    The Trump administration can proceed with plans to implement some new nationwide mail-in voting regulations ahead of this year's midterm elections, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday, but questions remain about the enforceability of proposed U.S. Postal Service restrictions.

  • August 24, 2026

    3 Firms Build Biotech Merger With $150M In Private Funding

    Biopharmaceutical company Werewolf Therapeutics and clinical-stage biotechnology firm Ambros Therapeutics have agreed to merge in an all-stock deal built by three law firms, and includes $150 million in private funding.

  • August 24, 2026

    Sony Sues Kroger Over Influencer Ads With Copyrighted Music

    Sony Music has filed a copyright suit against grocery chain Kroger, saying influencer ad videos promoting its brands, stores, products and latest sales have been using copyrighted sound bites without permission.

  • August 24, 2026

    Former Disney Child Star Alleges Rape By Adult On Film Set

    A former Disney child actress has sued the entertainment giant in California state court, alleging that nobody protected her while an adult employee twice her age plied her with alcohol and raped her during the filming of a Disney Channel Original Movie, "The Poof Point," when she was 14.

  • August 24, 2026

    Judge Orders $245M In Guardant Damages In DNA Patent Suit

    A judge has boosted what Guardant Health Inc. owes in a case in which it was found to have infringed two TwinStrand Biosciences Inc. patents covering methods of lowering the error rate in DNA sequencing, bringing the total to $245 million.

  • August 24, 2026

    Feds Cut Colo. River Basin Water For 2 Years Amid Drought

    The U.S. Department of the Interior has finalized a 10-year framework for Colorado River operations that will reduce water delivery to Arizona, California and Nevada by 1.25 million acre-feet for two years, as reservoirs dive to lows not seen since their 1963 construction due to ongoing drought conditions.

  • August 24, 2026

    Founder Of Crypto Startup Block Bits Convicted Of Fraud

    A California federal jury on Monday held that cryptocurrency startup founder Japheth Dillman deceived Block Bits investors by falsely claiming the company's auto-trading platform was up and running, following a trial in which his co-founder testified against him under a plea agreement.

  • August 24, 2026

    Interference Cross-Claims Tossed In Pot Sale Contract Suit

    A Los Angeles judge has thrown out several interference cross-claims in a contract dispute over cannabis product distribution rights, finding that distributor Broadway Alliance hadn't sufficiently alleged that Stella Farms deliberately sabotaged its relationships with third parties.

  • August 21, 2026

    Real Estate Recap: Retail, Hospitality Leaders Weigh In

    Catch up on this past week's key developments by state from Law360 Real Estate Authority — including interviews with real estate attorneys about the latest trends in the retail and hospitality sectors, among others.

  • August 21, 2026

    9th Circ. Rules Workers' Vaccine Bias Suit Must Go To Trial

    The Ninth Circuit ruled Friday that a jury must decide workers' religious-discrimination claims against the Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife, finding the lower court erred in concluding the agency accommodated the workers' religious-exemption requests from a COVID-19 vaccine mandate by offering them limited reassignment options.

  • August 21, 2026

    Crypto Co. Founder's Atty Tells Jury Biz Partner Lied, Not Him

    A cryptocurrency firm's founder deceived investors by claiming his company's auto-trading platform was up and running, a federal prosecutor told a California federal jury during closing arguments Friday, while the defendant's lawyer said his client was not trying to cheat anyone and called the government's cooperating witness "a stone cold liar."

  • August 21, 2026

    9th Circ. Tosses Calif. Ghost Gun Suit Over Standing

    A Ninth Circuit panel on Friday vacated a lower court ruling that struck down part of a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives ghost gun regulation, finding California and the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence lacked standing to sue on the grounds that the regulation did not go far enough in defining various "ghost gun" parts.

  • August 21, 2026

    Produce Co. Says Staffing Firm Owes Defense In Pot Test Suit

    Plant-based protein food producer Myrtle Greens says it shouldn't be on the hook in a hiring discrimination lawsuit filed by a man who was turned away from a delivery job due to a positive drug test, arguing that all hiring is done by a third-party contractor that allegedly agreed to indemnify the food-maker.

  • August 21, 2026

    Natural Fish Co.'s Sardines Contain Arsenic, Says Suit

    Natural canned seafood company Wild Planet Foods Inc. was hit with a proposed class action in California federal court alleging that its sardines contain dangerous levels of arsenic above the state's Proposition 65 threshold and exceeding the levels found in competitors' products.

Expert Analysis

  • Checking For AI Errors Is Now A Two-Way Street

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    A handful of recent federal and state cases demonstrate the importance of checking for errors generated by artificial intelligence not only in your own court submissions, but also your opponent's, as well as when catching opposing counsel's AI mistakes could result in an award for attorney fees, says Tamara Barago at Hollingsworth.

  • Green Card Memo Warps Long-Standing Adjustment Process

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    A recent policy memorandum that treats a nonimmigrant visa holder’s decision to seek adjustment of status in the U.S., rather than at a U.S. consulate, as an adverse factor reinterprets existing discretionary frameworks, compounds risks for applicants required to apply abroad and changes practitioner approaches to application preparation, says attorney Jack Jrada.

  • Celebs May Need Federal Protection To Fight Voice Deepfakes

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    Deepfakes and digital replicas are increasingly misappropriating celebrities' voices for commercial purposes, but unless federal right of publicity protections are developed, celebrities are left to rely on ill-equipped trademark and state law, say attorneys at Brown Rudnick.

  • Series

    The Biz Court Digest: Shoring Up Corporate Law In Maryland

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    Launched more than 20 years ago to improve complex corporate adjudication, Maryland's Business and Technology Case Management Program has been a solid success in some areas, but there always is room for improvement, says Bill Krulak at Miles & Stockbridge.

  • State Enviro Agencies Give Cosmetics Regulation A Makeover

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    As state oversight of cosmetics rapidly expands, the new statutes and regulations governing these products are being implemented by environmental agencies rather than consumer product regulators, requiring manufacturers, distributors and retailers to reevaluate their supply chains and procedures, say attorneys at Baker Botts.

  • How End Of SEC 'Gag Rule' Affects Free Speech Certiorari Bid

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    The Securities and Exchange Commission's recent rescission of the so-called gag rule, which forbade defendants in settlements from denying the SEC’s allegations, may sway the outcome of a petition to the Supreme Court in a case challenging the rule on First Amendment grounds, say attorneys at Troutman.

  • Perfectus Settlement Illuminates DOJ's Tariff Fraud Strategy

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    The Department of Justice's recent False Claims Act settlement with Perfectus Aluminum illustrates the government's continuing interagency focus on customs and tariff enforcement, and the related criminal indictment provides insight into conduct enforcers may associate with tariff evasion schemes, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.

  • Product-Or-Content Question Is Pivotal In AI Litigation

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    A growing range of civil cases against OpenAI address the question of whether the output of a generative artificial intelligence system is a product, subject to traditional tort doctrine, or third-party content — and the framing courts adopt will shape software liability well beyond AI, says David Meldofsky at Lawsuit Informer.

  • Citron Founder Verdict Tests Reach Of 'Half-Truth' Fraud

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    A California federal jury's conviction this week of Citron founder Andrew Left may be remembered less as a conventional manipulation prosecution than as a case about how far the "half-truth" doctrine can reach when applied to modern market speech, says Elisha Kobre at Sheppard.

  • Series

    Competing At Poker Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Playing poker in male-dominated rooms taught me to treat skepticism as background noise when my opponents seem to underestimate me, to apply pressure when it matters and to adapt without losing strategic discipline — skills that are all indispensable in restructuring and insolvency matters, says Alexis Gambale at Pashman Stein.

  • Why IPR Slowdown Has Not Led To More Patent Litigation

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    Despite sustained strength in patent application filings and a decline in inter partes review and post-grant review, 2026 has not seen the anticipated surge in patent litigation in district courts and at the U.S. International Trade Commission, potentially due to four reasons, say attorneys at Sterne Kessler.

  • Revisiting TransUnion's Underused Standing Rule, 5 Years On

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    The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals' recent use of the U.S. Supreme Court’s now five-year-old TransUnion v. Ramirez rule specifying that the "mere risk of future harm" isn't concrete enough to support a damages claim presents an opportunity to revisit this underutilized standing rule, say attorneys at Horvitz & Levy.

  • 5 Things Associates Must Ask About Their Firm's Merger Plan

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    The associates who navigate law firm mergers best ask the right questions early, such as inquiring about partners' plans, to assess how the merger could affect their workflow and career path, says Jackie Bokser-LeFebvre at Major Lindsey.

  • Turning To The Courts When PBM Reform Falls Short

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    The effectiveness of state laws intended to regulate pharmacy benefit managers remains uncertain, but litigation — utilizing tried-and-true theories like breach of contract and fair dealing — offers another mechanism through which stakeholders may seek relief from PBMs, say attorneys at Reed Smith.

  • 2 'Rocket Dockets' And The Rules That Propel Them

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    The fastest civil trial courts in the country are currently in the Eastern District of Virginia and the Southern District of Florida, and their chief judges provide insights into the court rules that keep them ahead, says Robert Tata at Hunton.

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